


The Thing About History (Is That It's Doomed to Repeat)

by heartsandmuses



Category: Captain America (Movies), Iron Man (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Different First Meeting, Alternate Universe - Jurassic Park Fusion, Bruce Banner & Tony Stark Friendship, Cap_Ironman Holiday Gift Exchange 2017, Captain America/Iron Man Holiday Exchange, Caves, Community Gift, Dinosaurs, First Aid, Getting Together, Hurt/Comfort, Jurassic Park AU, M/M, Minor Violence, Nightmares, Tony Stark Needs a Hug, Wilderness Survival, mentions of torture
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-24
Updated: 2017-12-24
Packaged: 2019-02-19 04:46:44
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 19,270
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13116327
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/heartsandmuses/pseuds/heartsandmuses
Summary: As far as rough weekends went, this was, hands-down, the worst Tony ever had — and considering one of the runner-ups involved being kidnapped by a terrorist group and held prisoner in a cave with a car battery hooked up to his chest, that was really saying something.Still, at least there weren’t anydinosaursin Afghanistan.





	The Thing About History (Is That It's Doomed to Repeat)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Cap Iron Man Community](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=Cap+Iron+Man+Community).



> First, some housekeeping:  
> Rated M for swearing, violence, and mentions of Tony being tortured in Afghanistan.  
> Also, this takes place in some mildly hand-wavey AU where Steve gets defrosted around the same time Tony's in captivity.  
> And while this is a Jurassic Park AU, it's only really the beginning that follows the movie. 
> 
> Now, onto the fun stuff:  
> This is the first time I've ever written something for the Cap-IM Holiday Gift Exchange, and I'm really happy I decided to participate this year! As this is a community gift, I tried to fill a couple prompts at once: namely 1) _dinosaurs, just anything with dinosaurs_ and 2) _Different first meeting au – the first time Captain America and Iron Man meet, they are stranded on an island together_ , with a little bit of 3) _field surgery + wilderness survival_ and 4) _competent Tony. that’s it. just Tony being really competent at something_ thrown in for the hell of it. I hope I did (at least some of) these prompts justice!

     As far as rough weekends went, this was, hands-down, the worst Tony ever had — and considering one of the runner-ups involved being kidnapped by a terrorist group and held prisoner in a cave with a car battery hooked up to his chest, that was really saying something.

     Still, at least there weren’t any _dinosaurs_ in Afghanistan.

     Living, breathing, impossible dinosaurs. As much as he wanted to fully appreciate the science that went into creating them, it was becoming more and more difficult the longer he spent on this godforsaken island.

     “Hey,” Bruce said, squinting upwards at the clear, cloudless sky above, one of his hands brimming his face to shield his eyes from the harsh afternoon sun, the other pointing almost excitedly at whatever he was staring at. “Hey, look! Your distress signal must’ve gotten through,” he said to Tony, a bright grin coming over his face. “They sent a rescue party to get us.”

     And sure enough, Tony recognized the shape of one of SHIELD’s quinjets overhead, flying low as if about to land. It passed by them, no matter how much Bruce, Harry, and Peter jumped up and down, yelling and waving their arms wildly to catch its attention, and Tony, even though he shushed them immediately—an instinctive reaction already—was smiling too, gaze following its path. “The coast,” he said, ushering the others in the direction of the aircraft. For the first time since the helicopter landed on Isla Nublar, nearly two days ago to the hour now, Tony let out a breath of unadulterated relief. Something in his chest, just below the arc reactor, finally eased. “C’mon, they’re landing on the beach.”

     “It’s, what, a couple hours away,” Bruce pointed out, though he didn’t waste any time surveying the area for predators. “And that’s even if we hurry.”

     Tony just clapped him on the shoulder. “Well, then we’d better get a move on before our only chance of getting off this fucking island gets lost out here too.”

     “Swear jar,” Harry and Peter chorused.

     “You know what? I’ll do you one better,” Tony said, leading the way through the dense foliage of the jungle. “If we make it out of here, I’ll give you ten grand each. I probably owe you that much by now anyway.”

  
***

     As much as Tony had a penchant for getting himself into trouble, he could say with the utmost confidence that this time, it was Norman Osborn who had gotten him into this entire mess.

     It started with a phone call.

     Or, more accurately, it started with fifteen phone calls spread out over the course of four days, all of which had been rerouted directly to Tony’s voicemail. The only reason he’d answered the sixteenth was because he thought it had been Pepper on the other end of the line, about to chew him out for not getting the specs in for the new line of Stark Phones.

     He didn’t talk to Osborn regularly—or ever, really—not even to gloat about how SI had made more of a profit in their first quarter than Oscorp did the whole year, but that was only due to an impressive amount of self-restraint of Tony’s part. (Not to mention, if he started calling up other companies to brag about how much better his was doing, he wouldn’t have time left in the day to get anything else done.) So when Osborn claimed to have something absolutely amazing to show him, something that would change the face of science forever, something that he’d bought an entire island to house, Tony had to admit, he was curious. Even if it did sound vaguely like the kind of bait a serial killer would use.

     There were many words that could be used to describe Norman Osborn—brilliant and crazy among the most popular—but stupid wasn’t one of them. He was persistent too, and nothing short of Tony changing his phone number every other day would dispel the man from calling again and again, calling Pepper, Rhodey, even Happy, to convince Tony to take a trip down to his secluded island.

      _Just a quick tour_ , Osborn had said. _Just for the weekend_.

     And Tony wasn’t stupid either, so he’d brought along Mark V of the armor, the suitcase nondescript next to all his other luggage. He didn’t think he’d actually need it. And he certainly didn’t think, as Pepper gave him a hug goodbye at the airport, and Happy a cordial wave over the roof of the car, that it might be the last time he’d ever see either of them again.

  
***

     “Tony Stark,” he said, “but you already knew that.”

     The man nodded politely, pushing his glasses up the bridge of his nose before reaching out to give Tony’s hand a firm shake. “Bruce Banner.”

     “Oh, I know,” Tony said, the too-wide vacant-eyed corporate smile he reserved for mostly for glad-handing at charity events now making way for something more genuine, something softer at the edges. “I’ve read your paper on— Okay, honestly, I’ve read all your papers at least twice, and I gotta say, it’s good stuff. Big fan of your work. Also a fan of how you turn big, green, and angry, but mostly the research stuff.” He watched Osborn head up to the cockpit, presumably to check with the pilot before take-off, and Tony leaned forward in his seat. “But, uh— what the hell are we doing here? Because the more I think about this whole ‘previously unheard-of secluded island’ thing, the more it sounds like the setting of a Stephen King novel.”

     According to Osborn, they had a long flight ahead of them, followed by a short helicopter ride, and only belatedly did Tony realize he should’ve updated his last will and testament while he still had the chance.

     At least he wasn’t alone in looking like he’d rather be anywhere else.

     Bruce just shook his head, glancing out the window at the stretch of tarmac spread out before them. “Honestly? I have no idea.”

  
***

     For all that could be said about Isla Nublar, Tony had to admit, it was beautiful. From overhead, it was easier to make out the patches of dense forest scattering the island and the large empty fields, but the view was even better when they flitted through the rocky cliffs and past a hidden waterfall. And while Tony was definitely a big city kind of guy, born and raised, he did have a certain affinity for the tropics — sure, this wasn’t quite the Bahamas or Bora Bora, but it was at least a good sign after being promised an exciting getaway weekend. Maybe he’d even have enough time to make himself a Tom Collins and bask in the sun for a few hours, between dealing with Osborn’s increasingly worrying surprise and talking shop with Banner.  

     The idea of having any kind of relaxing experience here flew out the window pretty quickly though, when the helicopter soared over a clear meadow on its way to the landing pad. Walls had been erected into pens in the open areas — tall, thick walls, barbed at the top and electrified, and it seemed more and more likely that what Osborn had to show him was his own personal knock-off Alcatraz.

     So Tony wasn’t sure whether or not it was a relief that once they landed and he could take in his surroundings, he noticed that everything was stamped with the same brand: _Jurassic Park_. And if there was any doubt in his mind as to what exactly that meant, the logo also included a helpful little outline of the skeleton of a Tyrannosaurus Rex.

     Tony looked to Bruce, whose expression was probably a mirror of his own—wide-eyed, confused, wary—and even though they’d only known each other for about the span of five and a half hours now, they seemed to share the same thought.

   _What the fuck?_

  
***

     Even though Tony had explicitly called shotgun, he and Bruce were stuck in the backseat of the Jeep, while Osborn and his driver were in front.

     The entire ride, Osborn was on the phone with his lawyer, patiently going over all the security protocols in place, and while the list was extensive, Tony couldn’t help but think he’d made a terrible mistake in agreeing to this. Whatever _this_ actually was — Osborn was entirely evasive when asked about the park, stating the same platitudes over and over again: _You'll see soon enough. We’re almost there. It’ll change your life, I guarantee it_.

     But just when Tony was about to pull out his own phone and tell Happy to send a jet for him, pronto, he glanced out the window and let his phone slip back into his pocket.

     Because right there, standing in the middle of one of the open plains, was a Brachiosaurus, its long neck extending up into the trees. It slowly plucked leaves off the branches, chewing carefully before swallowing.

     Tony gaped.

     Thank God Osborn had stopped the car just then, because Tony would’ve jumped out of it either way, running up to the huge, towering dinosaur. He was a man of science, after all, a man of technology, of _logic_ , and so it didn’t seem too unreasonable to want to figure out just how in the hell this was even possible.

     It was funny, really, how in his day-to-day of dealing with terrorists and monsters and self-proclaimed supervillians, that this—the park, the creatures—he still couldn’t wrap his head around.

     But as he approached one of the Brachiosaurus’ legs, thick and long, like the trunk of a Redwood, and let his hand graze over the tough skin, he knew without a doubt that this was all real. The dinosaur’s foot twitched under his touch, just slightly, and abandoned its post at the tree to wander in another direction, toward the horizon. It wasn’t animatronic, that was for sure; its movements were much too natural. The swing of its tail, the throaty noise it gave him, the way it walked, lumbering but confident, not even Tony could program something that effortless, that extraordinary, and certainly not on a massive scale — which was a clear indication that neither could Osborn.

     Tony had to step back to avoid getting trampled, tripping over himself in the process. He fell flat on his ass, but between all the awe and confusion and the same heart-pounding thrill that usually came with piloting the armour, he barely even noticed.

     Faintly, he was aware of Bruce sitting down beside him, letting out a soft little, “Holy shit” under his breath. He seemed to have forgone blinking as his gaze tracked the Brachiosaurus, and for a moment there, neither of them even breathed.

     “Yeah,” Tony agreed belatedly, unable to help the laugh that escaped him as he thought about just how ridiculous his life was becoming. What was next — aliens?

  
***

     The next part of the tour was both an informative guide and a kiddie roller-coaster all in one, their seats travelling on a track from one section to the next before looping back around to the theatre. Maybe before he’d actually seen one of the dinos, up close and personal, he might’ve protested some of the science—or at least looked to Bruce with a raised brow—but as it were, Tony just accepted whatever Osborn’s pack of scientists said as word, and left it at that. He didn’t have much of a background in biology anyway, not enough to catch or point out any of the flaws in their logic.

     That is, aside from the biggest flaw of _bringing dinosaurs back to life_.

     The way they’d done it, in essence, was by cloning DNA they’d extracted from ancient, preserved mosquitos, and then using frog DNA to fill in any gaps in the sequence. Which was scrappy and ingenious and resourceful, as advancements in science often were — but also incredibly batshit crazy. And morally wrong. And Tony could talk into the morning about how impressed and terrified he was in equal measures, because dinosaurs? Also scrappy and resourceful, and if Oscorp didn’t think they’d all get a case of cabin fever sooner or later, they were in way over their heads.

     Tony knew, coming into this weekend, that he’d be spending a good chunk of his time telling Osborn just how much of an idiot he was, but he definitely didn’t think it’d be to this degree.

     “You’re playing God, you know that, right?” Tony told Osborn, whose general air of nonchalance just egged him on even more. “There are a thousand reasons this place should be shut down on ethics alone, and I’m not even getting into what’ll happen when your precious little hybrid science projects finally try to hop that fence—”

     Osborn merely lifted a brow. “What, suddenly the futurist is afraid of technology advancing?”

     “Just because you’re making leaps and bounds, doesn’t mean they’re in the right direction,” he said firmly, and God, it was a miracle how Bruce hadn’t Hulked out yet, because Osborn could grate nerves like no one else. “Your scientists—” Tony waved his hand in the direction of the geneticists working, through the window “—were so preoccupied with whether or not they _could_ , they didn’t stop to think if they _should_.”

     “Stark, if you want to talk about playing God, maybe you should discuss Banner’s research. He’s no stranger to working with manipulated genetics, are you, Bruce?”

     Bruce, of course, didn’t answer, but his mouth was pressed into a thin line, eyes closed, as he drew deep breaths. They were strapped into the ride, otherwise he probably would’ve gotten up and left, swam back to the States if it came to that. Tony had considered it more than once since their arrival.

     “Hey, all he wants to do is help people,” Tony defended. “You just want to make a quick buck.”

     Osborn scoffed, but didn’t protest, and Tony left the matter at that. Bruce didn’t say a word the entire tour, but at least his meditation techniques must’ve worked because he was still small and mild-mannered by the time the ride was over.

  
***

     When they exited the theatre, returning back to the large and looming hall of the main building, near the display of the Tyrannosaurus Rex fossil, the first sound that greeted them was the patter of footsteps against tile.

     Naturally, Tony assumed the worst.

     It was only a slight relief when he realized they belonged to humans. Tiny humans. Tiny human _children_ , who should probably not be here, and should definitely not be running through what amounted to a museum at breakneck speeds, all but tripping over themselves as they skidded to a halt exactly a foot in front of Osborn.

     “Ah, finally,” Osborn greeted, gaze directed at one of the boys, the striking resemblance between them clueing Tony in to who the kid was: their hair was the same shade of chestnut brown, tousled identically, their eyes the same blue. Osborn turned his attention to the other boy, just enough to offer a polite smile, before looking back to Tony and Bruce. “Gentlemen, this is my son, Harry, and his friend, Peter Parker. They’ll be joining us for the rest of the weekend. Boys, this is Dr. Banner and Dr. Stark.”

     Tony shook their little hands, offered them each a smile, and plotted as many ways as he could to get off this godforsaken island.

  
***

     Dinner that night was a quiet and tense affair, the silence only broken by the sounds of cutlery against plates and the loud chewing coming from Osborn’s end of the table. The kids had eaten earlier, and were probably in bed by now, leaving only Tony, Bruce, and Osborn.

     By now, the skepticism had worn off completely and the astonishment had begun to diminish, replacing itself with a kind of deep-seated dread that sunk its hooks right in the pit of Tony’s stomach. Even though they didn’t come across any disasters greater than an unresponsive vending machine as of yet, he couldn’t shake the feeling that one would surprise them sooner or later.

     Maybe he’d just seen too many sci-fi movies over the years not to be wary of messing around with genetics. _Godzilla, The Fly, Sharktopus._ He could hand-pick his own personal Criterion collection of titles that had warned him not to toy with science like this if he didn’t want to die an untimely—and oftentimes excruciatingly painful—death.

     Of course, all those bleak and wary thoughts only hummed around in the back of his mind. The forefront he saved for the one question that had been eating at him since that first phone call. And while Tony didn’t want to provoke Bruce when he was already so wound up—which really just meant limiting his communication with Osborn—he couldn’t help but ask it anyway.

     “Why us?”

     Osborn almost startled at the sound of his voice, but when he looked up at Tony, dabbing his mouth with a perfectly crisp napkin, his smile was self-assured. “You two are smart, I’m sure you have some inkling as to why I’ve chosen to show you my latest feats of science.”

     “So, to boast,” Bruce said flatly, before Tony had a chance to.

     “Not quite.”

     “Right,” Tony replied dubiously. “But the thing is, Stark Industries doesn’t care about casual gene splicing, and Banner’s specialty is in nuclear physics. So I’ll ask again: why us?”

     Between the curious cock of Bruce’s head and Tony’s narrowed eyes, Osborn, thank God, could tell that neither were in the mood for mincing words. He set his fork down, took a deep breath, and said, matter-of-fact, “My lawyer is flying down here on Monday. In order for the park to officially open to the public, he requires one expert in a related field to sign off on it. Of Dr. Banner’s numerous PhDs—”

     “Seven,” Bruce supplied helpfully.

     “Of Dr. Banner’s seven PhDs,” Osborn amended, “especially the one in biochemistry, I feel like he fits the bill.”

     “You do biochem?”

     “I dabble,” Bruce told Tony, almost bashful about the fact.

     Tony nodded, considering. He leaned forward slightly to murmur, quiet and impressed, “Seven? Really?”

     Bruce shrugged like it wasn’t a big deal, but his smile betrayed the pride behind his expression. “I was thinking about trying for an eighth before— Well. Before.”

     Osborn interjected before they could get too off-topic, but Tony made a mental note to talk to Bruce some more later. Maybe once they were stateside again. “And Mr. Stark—”

     “I have a couple PhDs under my belt too, y’know. Feel free to call me Doctor Stark,” he said, reveling in the way Osborn let out a long-suffering sigh at that. “Let me guess: you don’t want my scientific expertise. You want… business tips? Entrepreneurial advice? A signed copy of last month’s _Forbes_?”

     Tony had meant just to get a few digs in, but the more he thought about the drop in revenue in Oscorp’s last few quarters, the more it all started to make sense. Osborn had been neglecting his company in favour of secretly building the park — and probably expended most of the company’s money on it, too. What he needed was a dedicated investor — and who better to enlist than a charming, intelligent, established world-saving billionaire? It would be a two for the price of one kind of deal, snagging Tony for the position: it’d boost both Osborn’s funds and the park’s reputation.

     “Ah,” Tony said, his grin almost smug as he settled against the hard back of his chair and crossed his arms over his chest. Osborn knew he’d figured it out, by the way his expression seemed to lose some of its previous irritation; still, Tony could see through it, could see how much Osborn resented having to ask for this. “You need someone to bankroll your dinosaur safari.”

     Osborn looked nearly pained as he grit out, “Yes.”

     “Then I guess you should try a little harder at wooing me,” Tony said, even though he already had a good idea of what his answer would be at the end of the weekend.

  
***

     The tour picked right back up the next day, and by noon Tony had showered, dressed, and made the most of the brunch buffet. Had he been back in New York, he was sure Pepper would’ve been proud of him for waking up before two in the afternoon, but here, he couldn’t even call her, what with the lack of cell reception on the island. (Tony had long stopped actively looking for red flags about this whole trip; they seemed to just reveal themselves to him at inopportune moments.) Of course, he could’ve rigged something up, between his state-of-the-art StarkPhone and the armour he’d brought, but he’d been so exhausted last night that he barely managed to send out an admittedly impulsive SOS to SHIELD before he passed out on the bed, three-piece suit and all.

     Bruce was off to the lab, to watch baby dinosaurs hatch and hopefully talk some sense into the scientists there, leaving Tony alone to wait for the Jeep that was set to take him around the parts of the island they didn’t get to yesterday.

     Well, not _alone_ , per se.

     “Mr. Stark! Mr. Stark!”

     That was all the warning he got before Harry and Peter, seemingly appearing out of thin air, started running toward him, waving their arms around as if he couldn’t see them from just a couple yards away. When they finally approached, both grinning up at him like they were at Disneyland, instead of the world’s most sketchy zoo full of creatures that shouldn’t even exist anymore, both took in a deep breath before spewing every single fact they knew about dinosaurs at exactly the same time.

     “Okay, uh, good morning to you too, I guess,” he interjected, glancing around, but they were the only ones out here. “Where’s Osborn?”

     “Um. Here?” Harry answered.

     “No, I mean— Where’s your dad?”

     “Oh. He’s not coming with us, he said you can take us to see the dinosaurs.”

     And on the one hand, _glory Hallelujah_ , but on the other, _well_ , _fuck_. Because the thing is, while Tony liked kids enough—was _great_ with kids, really—he’d already expended a week’s worth of patience just talking to Osborn over breakfast and didn’t have enough in his reserve to be playing babysitter all day.

     The boys seemed to sense his hesitation about this whole thing and, probably without even meaning to, looked up at Tony with these puppy-dog eyes, and that just wasn’t fair at all. No matter how tense and tired he was, he couldn’t say no to those matching pouty looks. The corner of Tony’s mouth ticked upwards as he motioned for them to get into the Jeep that had just pulled up in front of them. “Alright, alright. But I call shotgun!”

  
***

     The tour went along surprisingly smoothly, with Harry and Peter providing more commentary than the informative video playing on a small screen attached to the dashboard. It was clear that they knew their stuff, and unlike Tony had actually read up on the dinosaurs beforehand: both were smart kids, enrolled in some school specializing in math and science, even though they were only, what, eight years old? Nine, maybe? They reminded Tony a little of himself when he was younger, eager to get their hands on any kind of knowledge, in constant awe of all the science and tech around them. It was heartening, even if it did just make Tony realize how cynical he’d become.

     The hours passed by quicker than Tony realized, even though they didn’t end up actually spotting as many dinosaurs as they’d hoped for, and soon enough the clouds had disappeared, the sky darkening. The beginnings of a storm loomed overhead, raindrops just starting to drum against the windshield.

     A flash of lightning sparked, followed shortly by a rumble of thunder so forceful that Tony could practically feel it. Then another roll of thunder. Then another. And another. Strangely enough, the lightning seemed to have stopped altogether, which only made Tony suspect that what they were hearing wasn’t thunder at all.

     And God, sometimes he really hated being right.

     The screen on the dashboard flickered with static for a moment before shutting off altogether, and Tony gave it a good firm whack. It was primitive technology anyway; the only reason they’d kept the damn thing on this long was because the kids got a kick out of mimicking the faux, computerized David Attenborough providing the tour. But the screen remained black, and the car came to an abrupt halt right in the middle of the trail.

     Tony picked up the radio, about to tell Osborn off for his shitty tech breaking down way too easily, but was only met with more static.

     “And now the radio doesn’t work either. Well, that’s just fucking great,” Tony muttered under his breath, only realizing his mistake after two simultaneous gasps sounded from the backseat. “Whoops. Sorry. Just ignore me.”

     “You’re not supposed to say that,” Peter chided.

     Harry was quick to add, “Dad puts money in the swear jar whenever he says a bad word.”

     “Of course,” Tony said dryly, leaning over to root through the glove compartment for a spare key to start up the ignition. All he found was a stick of gum and a pamphlet. The car ran on a track, so it didn’t actually require a driver, but that didn’t stop Tony from testing out each of the pedals, to no avail. They only had two ways of getting out of here: hotwire the car, or wait for the power to come back online. He was leaning toward the former, just because he knew it would piss Osborn off.  “And how much does a good old-fashioned F-bomb cost?”

     “Five bucks.”

     That startled a laugh out of Tony. “I don’t know, kid, that’s pretty pricey.”

     “I don’t make the rules.” Harry held out a hand. “You gotta pay up, Mr. Stark.”

     Any response Tony might’ve given was immediately cut off by a strike of lightning, and seconds later, there was another clap of thunder. Again, it seemed to echo, powerfully enough that the vibrations pulsed through the car. They were evenly spaced, seeming to get stronger the more they went on. They sounded almost like—

     “Mr. Stark?” Peter, this time. His voice had come out as a quiet kind of squeak, swallowed almost entirely by the rhythmic _boom, boom, boom_ , that grew steadily closer.

     Footsteps. They sounded like footsteps.

     “Yeah, yeah, I’ll pay as soon as we get out of here,” Tony promised, with a dismissive, hand-wavey gesture that he hoped they would realize meant _keep the volume down_.

     “Mr. Stark,” Peter said again, more panicked, and Tony turned around in his seat to find the boy staring out the window, eyes wide. Harry, beside him, was similarly frozen, but managed to lift a shaky hand enough to point at the windshield.

     When Tony turned back around, he found himself staring a Tyrannosaurus Rex square in the eye, the dinosaur’s face all but pressed up against the windshield. Off in the distance, through the patter of rain, he could see that there was now a large rip in the previously electrified fence.

     He’d brought the armour with him, sitting tauntingly in the passenger seat, but he couldn’t put it on while in the car and couldn’t get out without exposing himself to a carnivorous dinosaur. It was a damned if he did, damned if he didn’t kind of situation, and while he wouldn’t have had a second thought about his chances of survival either way if he was by himself—though he probably would’ve gone for the suit in a second flat—now he had to think about what would get him and the kids out of this as safely as possible.

     Slowly, the T-Rex blinked.

     Its eye was the size of a football. Tony didn’t even want to think about its teeth.

     “Don’t move,” he said quietly. “And don’t make a sound.”

     “Mr. Stark,” Harry whispered, a tremor just barely noticeable in his voice. “I don’t know if that’s gonna make a difference. T-Rexes have really good vision.”

     “Thirteen times better than a human’s,” Peter added. “And he can probably smell us too.”

     And that was all Tony needed to know before he was reaching for the case in the passenger seat, but just as his fingertips brushed the handle, the car was suddenly pulled off the tracks, lifted about ten feet into the air, and unceremoniously dropped. It didn’t manage to quite stick the landing, and teetered onto its side. The T-Rex shoved the Jeep again with its massive snout, flipping the car twice more onto its other side, and Harry and Peter, who had so far stayed impressively quiet and calm about the whole thing, started screaming at the top of their lungs. This time, no amount of shushing could get them to shut up.

     The force of the barrel roll caused Tony to slam against the driver’s side window, and he waited a long moment to see if the car would move again. When it didn’t, he chanced a glance out of the windshield, but between the cracks in the glass and the rain streaking down its surface, he couldn’t see a thing, and just hoped for the best as he shrugged out of his blazer, wrapped it around his hand like he was preparing to go a few rounds in the ring with Happy, and punched the windshield as hard as he could. It was already in bad shape from the car being tossed around like a ragdoll, and the glass gave way easily enough, even though the hit took more of a toll on his knuckles than he anticipated. He smoothed over the perimeter of the empty windshield, making sure there weren’t any stray shards sticking out.

     “Alright, c’mon, we gotta go, chop chop,” Tony said, interrupting the boys’ yelling and crying—out of fear or pain, he wasn’t quite sure, but it made something in his chest clench up in worry either way—to gesture for them to take off their seatbelts. He helped them out, directing them out the windshield, first Harry, then Peter, just as the T-Rex let out a snarl and nudged the car again. Tony just barely made it out himself before the car was picked up once more and thoroughly shaken out, his briefcase flying out the window and into the T-Rex’s enclosure.

     Ah, fuck.

     It was too late to try getting it back, though; he had to focus on getting the kids someplace safe. Which, on an island where dinosaurs could now roam free, seemed more and more hopeless.

     It would’ve been so much easier if he had the armour. The helmet, at the very least, just so he could let JARVIS guide him, scope out where a nice patch of tall grass was to hide out in, or the nearest building. Could distract the T-Rex with a repulsor beam or two, not to injure, just to stun. But without his tech, his glorious, brilliant tech, Tony just had to rely on his pathetically human eyesight and whatever bullshit tactical training sessions SHIELD had signed him up for.

     The kids had stopped screaming, their sobs coming in much quieter now, but when Tony had shooed them off to hide out in the nearby outhouse he had spotted just a couple yards off the track while he dealt with the dino problem, they stubbornly refused, instead opting to duck behind Tony’s legs like a pair of toddlers as he slowly backed away. He considered running, but their odds didn’t seem too great: the T-Rex was bigger than them, faster, its natural instinct probably to give chase.

     The T-Rex, frustrated with the lack of bounty in the car, turned its gaze back on the path, landing right on Tony, Harry, and Peter in the middle of their measured retreat.

     There were only really two ways out of this, and one of them was getting eaten.

     God, if only he’d brought an updated mark of the suit, one that he could actually call to him on command; if only he had _something_ to work with here, even scraps, even—

     The prototype for the newest iteration of StarkPhone, the one Tony hadn’t officially sent in the specs to R&D for—even though Pepper had been on his case about it for weeks now—but was sitting idly in the pocket of his jeans. It was a goner anyway, between the crash and the heavy rainwater slowly but surely soaking his clothes (he’d finished the prototype mere hours before his trip here, he didn’t have the time to waterproof the damn thing), but it still weighed heavy on his heart to have to throw away something so ingenious. Nevertheless, considering the alternative was his life, he figured he could mourn its loss later.

     Tony pulled the phone out of his pocket, stuck on the lock screen no matter how many times he tried entering his password or thumbprint. It didn’t matter anyway, Tony thought, turning the brightness up to its highest setting, and waved it around as if he didn’t already have the dinosaur’s undivided attention. “Hey!” he shouted, much to the horror of the kids. “Hey, asshole! Over here!”

     “I don’t think that’s such a good idea, Mr. Stark,” Peter said, desperately and urgently tugging on the hem of Tony’s button-up, as if wanting to drag him away. “Please stop that, please, please, please—”

     “I have a plan, okay?” he assured. As far as plans went, though, this one was a little more dubious than most. Even so, they were running out of options and it didn’t seem like the kids had any better ideas, crying notwithstanding. “It’s only gonna buy us a couple seconds, so we need to move quick. On my cue, we’re gonna make a break for it, to the trees on the left. Got it?”

     “Got it,” the boys echoed back.

     The T-Rex’s approaching footsteps made the ground under them rattle, and Tony didn’t let the creature get too close before he kissed the back of his phone for luck, and tried to summon those two months he spent on his college baseball team (at Rhodey’s insistence) as he chucked the phone in the opposite direction.

     “Run!” he whispered. This time the boys had no trouble sprinting off to the dense forested area off to the left, Tony less than a pace behind them, as the T-Rex slowly turned to watch the bright light of the phone soar impressively in the air, enraptured and inquisitive. It took a couple steps toward the device, giving it a thorough sniff and a nudge of its nose before ultimately deeming it inedible and therefore unimportant.

     By the time it turned back, Tony and the kids were already gone.

  
***

     They ran through the dense jungle for a good ten minutes, through mud and muck and low-hanging branches, and then walked for another ten before Tony thought they were far enough from the T-Rex to stop for a moment and get their bearings.

     The night was quiet and chilly, but at least the rain had eased into a light drizzle. Harry and Peter hadn’t said another word since their narrow escape, but their trail was marked with sniffles and coughs and chattering teeth, and when they eventually stumbled upon a log sitting right under an umbrella of trees, Tony sat them down and guided them through the deep breathing exercises he sometimes did after a particularly bad nightmare. “Okay. Okay, see, we’re all fine now,” he said softly. He wasn’t sure who he was trying to reassure more, himself or the kids, but in any case, they all seemed to have calmed down, even infinitesimally. “Let’s just take five, and then we can figure out how to get back to— to the resort and humans and central heating later, alright? Are you two okay?”

     “I’m cold,” Peter murmured.

     “I know, I know. Not sure if that’s a problem I can fix right this second, though,” Tony replied, kneeling down next to the log. He looked over Peter, just a quick assessment of any injuries, but it seemed like he was fine. Just a little shaken up. Harry, however, had a worrying trickle of dried blood on his temple, right under his hairline, that he must’ve gotten from the car crash. Gently and a little uncertainly, Tony prodded at the area around it. “Does that hurt?”

     “Little bit,” he said, though he bit down on his lip a bit too hard afterwards to be fully convincing.

     “We’re gonna need Bruce—Dr. Banner—to check that out once we get back,” Tony said, mostly to himself. “And we’re gonna need to get out of the cold. And food, eventually.”

     Tony stood, ignoring the mud that was now staining the left knee of his jeans, and took inventory of what they had — and more, importantly, what they didn’t. With the suit and his phone lying somewhere in the T-Rex enclosure, and all the power systems in the park shut down, they were basically clean out of tech, save for the arc reactor. But Tony wasn’t about to take that apart and use it for scraps anytime soon. They had no food, no clean water, nothing except for the clothes on their back, which, with the rain still damp on their skin and the temperature dropping to a steady cool, wasn’t quite enough. And, to top it all off, they had no weapons to defend themselves — and Tony didn’t think punching out dinosaurs with his bare fists was really the best idea.

     They just needed to get back to the main building—or any building—dry off, warm up, and grab a bite to eat in the mess hall. Easy.

     Except for the fact that Tony had no idea where they were, too caught up in their adrenaline-fueled escape that he hadn’t made a point to keep track of which turns they’d made or which landmarks they’d passed. He just needed a map or JARVIS or—

     Or a better view.

     He eyed the tall trees they were standing under, just at the edge of the underbrush, that opened up into a wide open plain next to them. “Do kids these days still like climbing trees?”

     And that, that tiny suggestion of normalcy amongst all the craziness of the last twenty-four hours, was enough to make their eyes bright and their grins carefree, even if just for a moment.

     By the time they had all climbed up to the top, trying to make themselves comfortable sharing the same thick branch, the rain had finally petered out and Harry and Peter didn’t seem quite as tense. From up here, Tony could survey far enough to catch glimpses of a building out in the distance. It was just a speck on the horizon, and he had no idea how long it’d take to walk to it, but still, it was something. It was a start. First thing tomorrow, he resolved, they’d head back to camp, when the sun was out again and they didn’t have to make the trek blindly.

     Tony leaned back against the trunk of the tree, the branches forming something of a hammock, surprisingly sturdy under him. Harry and Peter were curled up against his chest, close together in fear that they’d fall right down to the jungle floor otherwise. Tony had blanketed them with his suit jacket, despite its dampness; he wasn’t sure if it was any better, but at least it covered the dim, blue glow of the reactor, a clear target for any nearby predators.

     Around them, the sounds of the jungle’s steady breathing were strangely calming: the low, howling calls in the distance, the rustle of leaves below, the wind whispering through the trees. Like a lullaby, almost. His eyes slipped shut, though he kept listening for danger, and had almost drifted off by the time Harry murmured, “That’s another two dollars.”

     Tony cracked an eye open to peer at him curiously. “Hm?”

     “For what you called that T-Rex,” Harry explained, and he was so dead serious Tony couldn’t help the amused, under-the-breath laugh that left his lips. “That’s another two dollars in the swear jar.”

  
***

     Mere moments after Tony had started to think that this would all turn out fine, that they’d get back to the resort without incident, completely intact, the velociraptors showed up.

     Which was just fucking perfect timing, really — the one time Tony tried to be optimistic this whole trip, and look where it got him. And all before he’d managed to get his hands on a cup of coffee, too.

     They may have been a hell of a lot smaller than the T-Rex, but were just as enthusiastic at the human buffet laid out in front of them, hissing and shrieking and growling at Tony and the boys. One after another, they’d leapt out from behind the nearby trees, and by the time Tony glanced around, trying to find an out, they were already surrounded. There was no hope of hiding from the velociraptors anyway, not with the mid-morning sun hanging high in the sky, blanketing the entire island in harsh, unfiltered light. They were stuck here, in the middle of a small clearing.

     There must’ve been about six in total, knife-toothed and nimble, ready to pounce at the slightest movement. Instinctively, Tony motioned for Peter and Harry to get behind him, even if it wouldn’t make much of a difference. The velociraptors were circling them, like boxers in the ring, and Tony felt absolutely ridiculous, putting his fists up like he was about to have a back-alley brawl with them, but it was either that or be killed instantly. It would be pathetic to have his obituary read that he’d been eaten by bloodthirsty dinosaurs without at least putting up a fight first.

     One of the velociraptors lunged forward, jaws snapping, and Tony’s reflexes were just swift enough to pull Harry a step back before the dinosaur’s teeth could graze him. “Stay calm,” he murmured under his breath. He assumed he was murmuring, in any case. It was growing increasingly difficult for even his thoughts to be heard over the desperate pounding in his ears, the reactor working in double-time. “No waterworks this time around, alright? Can you do that for me?”

     Peter and Harry half-mumbled their assent, all but frozen in place. They were clinging on to each other like lifelines.

     “Good,” he said, voice surprisingly level. “Hey, Pete? What can you tell me about these things?”

     “They’ve got a claw on one of their toes,” Peter answered immediately. Quietly. “Three inches long. They probably use it for stabbing, to defend themselves.”

     Well. Okay then.

     With no weapons, no protective gear, and no armour, Tony would either have to _MacGyver_ or _Rocky_ his way out of this one. Whichever was more likely to get them out of this with all their limbs still attached to their bodies.

     A part of Tony was glad that he didn’t have JARVIS with him for this particular fight; he didn’t want to know what his odds were here.

     Another velociraptor, the one in front of Tony this time, made a trilling sound, and the rest of the pack moved in closer, teeth bared and clawed hands out in front of them, ready to swipe. The first one, just off to the left, lunged again, aiming for Tony this time. But he was prepared, and managed to dodge the attack. The velociraptor wasn’t deterred so easily. It swung one of its short, clawed arms at Tony, just grazing his shoulder, and thank God for Pepper and her insistence that Tony be dragged along to her self-defense classes, because it was almost second nature, the way he grabbed the velociraptor’s elbow, pulled it in, and then swept its legs at the heel. The velociraptor went down with a hard thud, flat on its back, but before Tony could marvel at how that actually worked, it was back on its feet again, trilling much louder and more angrily than before.

     It must’ve been some kind of a battle cry, because in the next instant, the rest of the pack leapt to action.

     And listen, Tony had looked death right in the eye more times than he could count, so his life had long stopped flashing before him. But that didn’t mean he wasn’t scared shitless: as much work as he’d done on the arc reactor, rebuilding and replacing the damn thing over and over again, he was sure that it would give out at any second, what with the way his heart was trying to break out of his chest like a battering ram. He could feel his shirt vibrating with his pulse, the open collar flapping against his throat, and his hands were shaking like when he itched for a bottle.

     It looked the velociraptor was grinning at him now, teeth bared, tongue flicking out like a lizard’s.

     Tony narrowed down his options in the split second as the velociraptor sprung toward him, the arc of its leap seeming to pass in slow motion as he tried to decide whether to duck or run, duck or run, duck or—

     He ducked, moving into a smooth tuck and roll that barely got him past the sharp hooks of the velociraptor’s claws, _thank God_ , but just as he was preparing to get up, run over to the kids, and figure out the rest of the plan as he scooped them up and made a break for it, a loud roar sounded in the distance that made him freeze in his tracks.

     The velociraptors stopped too. They stood up straight, looking to each other and chittering softly.

     Tony glanced over at the kids. Eyes wide with fear, but otherwise unharmed; it was the exact same expression as they wore last night, during their botched safari ride that had so rudely been interrupted by that damn T-Rex. A wave of deja vu washed over Tony when he heard that roar again, louder this time, closer. The ground shook under the weight of heavy feet.

     Off to the left, the trees rustled before parting suddenly, and into the clearing stomped Dr. Bruce Banner, huge and green, muscles bulging as he clenched his fists, gaze raking over the scene with a kind of bloodthirsty interest, and shouted again.

     A flutter of wings filled the air, as dinosaurs in the treetops suddenly fled to the skies, and immediately after, dead silence. The wind whistled, after a long moment.

     Tony had a feeling, as soon as he shook hands with Bruce on the plane, that he’d meet the Hulk sometime over the course of the trip, but he never imagined he’d be so entirely relieved about it.

     Bruce reached out and without warning and grabbed the velociraptor nearest to him by the tail, lifting it high into the air and then slamming it down on the muddy ground, hard enough that Tony could practically feel the blow himself. And then, still in a rage, Bruce took another one—the one that had tried to take a bite out of Harry earlier—and catapulted it back into the forest like some kind of Olympic shot-put gold medalist, and off in the distance came a dull _thunk_ followed shortly by the echo of a pained cry.

     The remaining four velociraptors seemed to get the hint quickly enough, bolting for the trees, and Tony let out an exhale, hands on his knees, just making sure he had enough breath in his lungs. “Bruce, buddy, you have no idea how glad I am—”

     When he looked back up, the smile faltered on his face. Because when Bruce looked back at him, his gaze was steely and without any recognition in his eyes.

     “—to see you. Uh, Peter, Harry, why don’t you go take a walk while I talk to Doctor Banner for a second?” he suggested, and the boys slowly shuffled over to the edge of the clearing, hiding behind the thick trunk of a nearby tree. Bruce didn’t even spare them a glance. “Bruce? Hey, c’mon, I know you’re in there. It’s me, Tony. Even as Jolly Green, I’m sure you’ve heard of me. Three PhDs, invented a new element? Got captured by terrorists for three months? One of Forbes’ Forty Under Forty since I was twenty-two? There’s a lot of material to choose from, take your pick,” he said, hands out, placating.

     When Bruce took a step forward, it took all Tony had not to step back. At least now his expression had changed from cruel to curious, and Tony had never been good at crisis resolution, but there was something reassuring about the furrow of Bruce’s brow that prompted Tony to continue, soothing and gentle.

     “Listen, I’m not gonna hurt you or anything. I just want Bruce back, that’s all.”

     The Hulk grunted, as if opposed to the mere thought, but was distracted by a sweeping, full-body twitch. He stumbled back a few steps, reaching out to grab the branch of a nearby tree to steady himself, but accidentally snapped it off. A little bit wild-eyed now, he staggered backward into the brush of the forest, hidden by the lush foliage, with a series of distressed groans and grumbles.

     Tony motioned for the kids to stay where they were, as he crept over to the dense line of trees in front of him. “Bruce?” he called. “You okay, buddy?”

     All he got in response was a confused, tired, “Huh?” But it sounded human, so Tony took what he could get.

     Bruce was curled up behind a verdant bush, hugging his knees to his chest. His glasses were lost, his hair completely disheveled, and when just a minute ago he’d been wearing dark purple shorts, now all that covered him was more or less a fig leaf. Tony might’ve gotten more of an eyeful than he anticipated.

     “Oh God,” Bruce mumbled, rubbing a hand over his face, like he’d just woken up with the worst hangover of his life. “What happened?”

     “Your big, green side kinda came out for a while,” Tony replied easily, shrugging out of his jacket and tossing it over to Bruce. “And then you saved my life. So. Thank you.” He paused. “Uh, one question, though. No, wait, two questions: where the hell did you get those shorts, and what happened to them?”

     Bruce smiled, combing a hand through his hair. If anything, the motion just made his curls even messier. “I— Don’t laugh, but I wear them all the time. Just in case. I, um, I’m trying to invent a pair that can stretch to fit the Hulk and then contract back to normal afterwards, but. No such luck. They just stay stretched,” he explained, gesturing over to the giant-sized pair of shorts lying in the dirt a couple feet away.

     In Tony’s defense, he didn’t laugh. He couldn’t help his snicker, though. “Sorry,” he said, clapping Bruce on the shoulder once the man had gracelessly stood up, jacket held firmly in front of him. “But hey, listen, I’ve been experimenting with different fabrics for my undersuits. Once we get out of here, I can help you design an entire Hulk wardrobe if you want.” Just teasing, he added, “How do you feel about a nice, stretchy three-piece suit?”

  
***

     Their first course of action was to locate the merchandise kiosk Bruce claimed he had passed by not too long ago, a round little hut standing a couple feet away from another outhouse. If there was one thing worse than going up against a gang of velociraptors, it was going up a gang of velociraptors while fully nude — or so Tony could imagine. Preventative measures, and all that.

     Peter and Harry took up the front of their procession, after being appointed the party’s official lookouts, and Tony and Bruce followed closely behind them, the former keeping an eye on the kids while the latter offered directions every so often.

     Bruce had tried to tie the jacket around his waist, but all that did was leave his ass hanging out like a flimsy hospital gown and send Tony into another fit of poorly-concealed laughter, so for most of the trek he just held it in front of him as he grumbled about Tetanus shots and how he wished the Hulk hadn’t ruined a perfectly good pair of shoes.

     When they finally arrived at the kiosk, Tony and the kids gave Bruce some privacy to shop around, waiting for him on the other side of the path where they’d found a nearby tree to sit under. It was a clear day, no dinosaurs in sight, and while Tony had the niggling suspicion in the back of his mind that that would change sooner or later, the moment, here, under the cool shade of a conifer, was nice. He wouldn’t go so far as to say _relaxing_ , but it was definitely… peaceful.

     Bruce emerged after a few minutes, looking for all intents and purposes like some kind of safari tour guide, with khaki shorts that ended just above the knee and an oversized Jurassic Park t-shirt that matched his similarly logoed baseball cap. The shirt was, of course, tucked into his pants. Somehow, he managed to wrangle up some socks and hiking boots too, but despite the fact that he was no longer in his birthday suit, was obviously displeased at the fashion—or lack thereof—that the park’s merchandising offered. Bruce tugged at the hem of his shorts, grimacing as if wearing them physically pained him. “Why are these so tight? It’s making me itchy.”

     Tony whistled. “Wow. Any more khaki and you’d be Steve Irwin.”

     Bruce gave him a dry look, then pushed the brim of his hat down to shadow the embarrassed wash of pink that settled on his cheeks.

  
***

     Once Bruce was no longer naked and afraid, he caught them up on what had happened back at the resort. Apparently, sometime last night, as Tony and the kids were out on the last leg of their tour, the power grid and security systems were completely shut off, and while it was possible that it had something to do with the storm, Osborn had insisted, instead, that it was the work of a disgruntled employee. Which Tony could understand, not wanting to work for Osborn, but even he had to admit, this was getting to be a little over-the-top.

     Bruce had offered to make the trip to the opposite side of the island to manually switch the power back on, hoping to find Tony, Harry, and Peter along the way. Osborn at least had the forethought to send out to a small team of security personnel with him.

     “We, um, got split up,” Bruce said, his face falling into something somber, and Tony could read between the lines well enough, even if the kids couldn’t. “I couldn’t find them again.”

     And Tony, tactful as he was, changed the subject, telling Bruce about how he’d lost his tech, piece by piece, and then about the SOS he’d sent out to SHIELD the other night. “I don’t know if they got my message or not,” he said, over the soft snap of twigs under his shoes. He tried for casual, but fell a little short of the mark. “But fingers crossed.”

     “I’m sure they did,” Bruce replied, though it wasn’t much of an assurance when he sounded just as uncertain.

  
***

     Naturally, Bruce was right.

     And for a short-lived moment there, as Tony surveyed the airship overhead, it didn’t feel as though the arc reactor was about to suddenly give out. But then he inhaled, exhaled, and the feeling returned to him, the bone-deep dread, the constant unease, the familiar tightness in his chest.

  
***

     The beach was on the way to the backup power generator, but before they could reach either destination, they were accosted. Again. By the same pack of velociraptors. Or at least Tony assumed it was the same pack — the one in front was especially eyeing him, like it wanted payback for being flipped like an extra in the _Karate Kid_.

     Admittedly, this time it had been entirely Tony’s fault.

     They were walking along the coast, searching for the quinjet, when out of nowhere, a baby dinosaur came out, something surprisingly shiny clasped between its teeny hands. It was cute, no more than two feet tall, but Tony still startled when it ran out in front of them. It seemed to happen in slow motion, but that may have been due to the lack of traction its feet could get in the sand — or maybe Tony was just jumpy, half expecting a Kraken to rise up out of the water and swallow them all whole. It wouldn’t even much of a shock, at this point.

     “Look,” Peter said, sounding absolutely delighted, like he’d run into some adorable puppy on the street. “It’s like a tiny velociraptor.”

     “It probably is,” Bruce said, watching it warily. “Maybe we should get away from here, go a little farther inland.”

     And Tony was fully prepared to agree, even though this was, so far, the only dinosaur they’d seen near the coast, on the smallest off-chance that there’d be more around. Pack animals, they wouldn’t leave one of their young by itself like that. Others had to be nearby, somewhere.

     But he paused before he could get any words out, halting so suddenly that Harry all but barrelled into his legs. Because the thing in the velociraptor’s hands, bright and glinting under the hot sun, was a piece of the armour.

     A gauntlet, he realized upon closer inspection, taking a step forward without thinking. It was a little worse for wear, smashed up in some places, cracked in others, but it was, for the most part, still intact. Even one gauntlet was better than nothing.

     The dinosaur took a step back, ready to bolt, and Tony just held his hands up placatingly, speaking barely above a whisper. “Hey, little guy. Where’d you get that?” he asked, as if there was any chance he’d receive an answer. “How about you give that to me, and we’ll be on our way, okay? We’re not gonna hurt you.”

     “Tony,” Bruce said, a warning and a plea all at once.

     “I got this,” Tony assured, waving him off. He didn’t take his eyes off the dinosaur, trying once more to bargain with it. “Alright, c’mon, just hand it over. I’m pretty sure you even holding that is some violation of the Prime Directive. Give it.”

     The dinosaur let out a defiant shriek.

     Tony knew this was his last chance to take back his tech, so without thinking, he reached out and snatched the gauntlet from the velociraptor’s grip, stood up, and motioned for them all to make a quick getaway.

     There was just one problem.

     Or, rather, four problems.

     Four very angry, very dangerous, very unsympathetic adult-velociraptor-sized problems.

     Tony counted again. There had been six before, but the other two were probably on bedrest after everything the Hulk had done during their last confrontation. Which evened out the odds from about a five percent success rate to maybe a seven or an eight.

     The tiny velociraptor returned to its parents, but they still didn’t seem satisfied.  

     Tony flicked Bruce in the neck.

     “Hey! What’d you do that for?”

     “Come on, Hulk up. Get angry,” Tony said, slipping a hand into the gauntlet. It was more snug than he remembered, and a piece of metal was digging uncomfortably into his thumb, but he hardly noticed as he aimed and took fire.

     Nothing happened.

     _Fuck_.

     “I can’t just— It’s not a party trick, you know, I can’t just Hulk out whenever I feel like it,” Bruce told him, his voice taking on a desperate edge when the velociraptors stalked forward. “I have to be absolutely furious. And to be honest, I’m not feeling mad right now, I’m mostly just scared and tired—”

     Tony flicked him again.

     “Ow!”

     “Your papers were long-winded and messy,” Tony told him, as serious as he could manage, continuing to fiddle with the gauntlet. He just needed to buy some time — even a couple minutes to get it back in working order. “Half the time you talked in circles, and once it took you twenty pages before you even stated your thesis. It was like being forced to read Kerouac in high school.”

     Bruce frowned. “Okay, that’s not making me angry, just sad.”

     Tony looked up at him. “Sorry,” he said, and he really meant it too. “Worth a try. That was all a lie anyway, your papers were amazing.”

     “Less sad now,” Bruce conceded. “Still scared shitless. Is there any way you can hurry up with that thing, because they’re getting kinda close—”

     “I’m _trying—_ ”

     “Mr. Stark—”

     “Okay, everyone shut up and let me think,” Tony stressed, finally looking up from the gauntlet—and just in case, he gave it a good old smack, like it was an old boxy television set—to survey the sight in front of them.

     The velociraptors were closing in, most of them slow, but the leader much more confident, taking enthusiastic leaps. By his calculations, they had about a minute to get the hell out of Dodge or risk being eaten alive. The thing was, they were surrounded on three sides, and as he backed up, Tony could feel the tide slosh against his ankles, soaking his shoes and socks enough that they squelched wetly with every retreating step.

     And hey, there was an idea.

     “Harry, Peter, please tell me you know how to swim.”

     They both shook their heads, almost regretfully.

     Or not.

     “Okay, new plan,” Tony said. There was really only one option left, and while it wasn’t exactly ideal, it would give the others a way out. “I’ll create a diversion. Bruce, first chance you get, take the kids and haul ass. Find the backup power generators, switch them on, and then we’ll meet up at the jet. Got it?”

     Bruce looked at him warily, like he knew what Tony was thinking—and God, Tony really hoped he did, hoped he wouldn’t wait for him, wouldn’t pass go, wouldn’t collect two hundred dollars, would just get the kids out of here—but nodded nonetheless. “Got it.”

     Tony stepped forward, aiming the gauntlet at the pack leader, and fired. This time, it actually worked, a repulsor beam shooting the velociraptor right in the chest. It was a weaker one than usual, admittedly, and didn’t seem to do any permanent damage, but the shock of the blast seemed to freeze the dinosaur in place, at least for a moment.

     Four more, in rapid succession, and the velociraptors were on the ground, shaken up if not exactly wounded. But Tony would take what he could get, and before they had a chance to get back up, he reached over and gave Bruce a nudge. “Alright, go, now!”

     “Tony, c’mon, we can—”

     “I got this,” he insisted. “Just go!”

     It didn’t take much more convincing than that, though Bruce did offer a smile that was a little too melancholy before he left.

     But despite the poise and certainty he managed to feign for the others’ sake, it didn’t take more than a minute or two after their departure before Tony felt as though this might’ve been a terrible idea. The velociraptors were back on their feet quickly enough, and the repulsor was getting more sluggish after each shot, each beam less powerful than the last.

     So it was only a matter of time before one of the velociraptors finally attacked, getting close enough to swipe a claw at him, catching him in the side, followed in succession by a swift kick that just narrowly missed his thigh. Tony reached out to touch the cut just under his ribs: it wasn’t deep, but his hand came back sticky with blood, and his shirt now had a long tear from the seam in his side right down to his navel.

     He fired, right at the dinosaur’s smug face, but the blast didn’t do much more than stun the creature. Until he realized afterwards, as it staggered around, tripping on the baby velociraptor chirping by its feet, that he must’ve temporarily blinded the creature.

     It wasn’t a total win, though, because one of the other velociraptors quickly took its place, jaw snapping a little too close to Tony for comfort, and he fired again, this time at the second dinosaur’s chest. But the gauntlet was quickly running out of juice, and the shaky beam had practically no effect.

     Well, okay, that was a lie. It did manage to get the velociraptor more riled up than before, which was really saying something.

     Tony, not knowing what else to do and relying solely on a cocktail of instinct and adrenaline, punched the velociraptor in the snout hard enough that his hand hurt even through the gauntlet. The velociraptor didn’t take that too kindly, and reached out to grab the gauntlet between its teeth — Tony had just enough time to pull his hand out of it before it was crushed like an aluminum can and subsequently spit out.

     And that was it. Those were all the tricks Tony had up his sleeve, and as he slowly tried to back away, only to find the current lapping at his feet again, his calves, his knees, he sent one last silent goodbye out to Pepper, Rhodey, and Happy, and prayed to— to _someone_ , that Bruce made it out okay, that the kids were safe, that—

     There was a thud, and the velociraptor that Tony was sure was going to kill him immediately dropped, hitting the ground like a sack of potatoes.

     Startled, Tony glanced around.

     Five feet away, lying half buried in the sand, was the recognizable red, white, and blue of Captain America’s shield.

     So, Tony was pretty sure he had died. Or was dying. Or hallucinating. Because when he looked up, there was Captain America himself, trying and struggling to fight off the remaining three dinosaurs, motioning desperately to the shield he must’ve just thrown.

     “Hey!” he yelled, in a voice that was very real and very familiar, as one of the velociraptors tackled him like a linebacker. “Mind tossing that back to me?”

     And while the whole scene did leave Tony taken aback, he quickly snapped out of it, picked up the shield, and threw it, just as he’d wanted to since he was five years old. It was heavier than it looked, but he got the job done well enough. Effortlessly, Cap reached out and caught it, slamming it against the throat of the nearest velociraptor until the creature was struggling for breath, and then lobbing it at the next one, catching it right in the chest. The last velociraptor snuck up on Cap from behind, but before Tony could call out some kind of warning, it shrieked, cuffing him in the shoulder.

     Even from a couple yards away, Tony could hear the fabric of the suit tearing, and he rushed forward as fast as he could — which, bogged down by the wetness of his jeans and the sinking of the sand under his shoes, felt impossibly slow.

     Cap, distracted, whirled around, and the velociraptor he’d just hit in the chest retaliated by kicking him in the calf, the claw on one of its toes— _three inches long, used for defending itself_ , _for stabbing_ , ran through Tony’s head—leaving a large gash on the back of his leg. Blood darkened his suit, slowly blossoming, but Steve didn’t stop. It was like he hadn’t even noticed until he’d knocked one of the creatures out, nearly collapsing as he took a step back, but catching himself just in time. He swayed on his feet, squaring up in front of the last velociraptor, like a concussed boxer readying for his last round in the ring, and swung the shield in front of him. The velociraptor easily dodged it, and Steve ducked to avoid the subsequent swipe directed right at his head, losing the shield as he threw his arms out to steady himself.

     It landed about three steps away, just out of reach, and both Cap and the velociraptor followed its trajectory to the ground, leaving a circular indent in the sand around it.

     Tony, without thinking, swooped in and grabbed the shield, slamming it down on the velociraptor’s back as hard as he could. The velociraptor cried out, and Tony backhanded the creature with the shield. It, like the others, dropped to the ground. He waited for a moment, but it didn’t get up again, just made low, gurgling sounds in the back of its throat, toes twitching, and Tony turned to Cap with a long exhale.

     “Is it—?”

     “Unconscious,” Tony answered, handing back the shield. “Uh, here, you might need this.”

     “Thank you,” he said, just as earnest as Tony imagined he would sound. Now that they weren’t in any imminent danger, Cap took the time to look him up and down — over his soggy shoes and tattered clothes, right up to the five o’clock shadow filling in the spaces around his goatee, higher and higher until his gaze reached Tony’s eyes, staying there for a second too long. Tony waited for the inevitable comment on his likeness to Howard, but it never came. Instead, Cap just blew out a breath, quirked a grin, and said, “You sure have a way with the shield. I’m impressed.”

     And listen, Tony really wanted to hate the guy. For the better part of his adolescent and adult years, he'd harboured this gnawing resentment, wore it around like a badge — the same way Howard carried his obvious disappointment that Tony hadn't turned out anything like the good Captain. But something about the praise, so honest but so casual, appealed to Tony's childhood idolatry instead. It was probably just the adrenaline high, Tony assured himself. Or the fact that Cap had just saved his life a minute ago. Or the way his gaze, soft and keen, made Tony's heart stumble over a beat for the first time since he'd installed the arc reactor.

     Whatever it was, he didn't dwell. Meeting Cap—and, surprisingly, not loathing him on principle—was still far from the strangest thing that had happened this weekend. Not to mention, between their combined injuries and the carnivorous dinosaurs on the loose, they had much bigger fish to fry right now.

     “Yeah, well, I had a replica I used to play around with as a kid,” he answered with a shrug, as if they hadn’t just been a hair’s breadth from death. He held out a hand. “Tony Stark, if you haven’t figured it out by now.”

     Cap gave it a firm shake. “Steve Rogers.”

     A couple feet away, one of the velociraptors twitched, whimpering.

     “You know, as fun as this whole getting-to-know-you thing is, I think we should probably move this conversation elsewhere,” Tony pointed out. “Preferably before these guys come to, with killer migraines and a thirst for blood. Can you walk?”

     Steve furrowed his brows in confusion. “Of course I can w—” And, with way too much confidence for someone who just got stabbed in the leg by a velociraptor, took a step inland. He must’ve overestimated how much of his weight he could actually bear, because he immediately pitched forward, and if it hadn’t been for Tony’s quick reflexes, one hand flat on Steve’s chest, other arm winding around his waist, Steve would’ve fallen face-first into the sand.

     “Alright, big guy, relax, I’ve got you,” he said, as Steve, with a wince, slung an arm around Tony’s shoulders. “Barney & Friends managed to get a couple of good hits in. You’re bleeding.”

     Steve looked down at the blood collecting around the back of his knee, the suit clinging to his skin. “Oh,” he said, a little dazed, as though it hadn’t fully registered until now. “I guess I am.”

     “Alright, let’s get you somewhere safe,” Tony said, mostly to himself as he surveyed the surrounding area. The coast was too open, the jet not even a speck in the distance. And Tony was definitely not keen on returning to the thick, wet jungle if he could help it.

     It seemed as though Steve had read his mind, because he supplied, “I saw a cave on the way here, while I was searching for you. It’s not too far off, and it didn’t seem like any creatures made a home of it yet.”

     “Perfect,” Tony said, trying with all his might to sound like he actually meant it. About the jungle thing— Yeah, scratch that, he’d take a dino-infested wilderness over a cold, damp cave any day. But it was their best shot, and at least it’d keep them out of sight from the velociraptors, even if just for a little while. “Lead the way, Cap.”

  
***

     Steve’s suit was like Mary Poppins’ handbag. They’d hardly stepped into the mouth of the cave—small, empty, lit by the slowly setting sun in the distance—before he slumped against the nearest wall, unzipping pockets Tony hadn’t even noticed were there and triaging his injuries.

     “The serum,” he started, pulling out a tin of Altoids and handing it to Tony. “It, uh, it has a healing factor. I’ll be fine by this time tomorrow at the latest, but I think if we have any chance of getting back to the jet by sundown, I’m gonna need some patching up. The shoulder’s not too bad, but, God, my leg’s killing me—”

     “Okay, whoa, slow down a sec,” Tony interjected, just as Steve pulled a compass out of a hidden pocket over his breast, a baggie of granola from an otherwise empty holster on his thigh. Amazingly, there wasn’t even a speck of blood on the Ziplock, and Tony was reminded about how he hadn’t eaten since he and Bruce kicked in a vending machine right after that first velociraptor attack. “Stop that. How— What? Where are you even storing all of this? Actually, you know what? Don’t tell me. What’s with the breath mints?”

     “First aid kit.”

     “Of course. And the granola?”

     “Got hungry on the ride here,” Steve said simply.

     And Tony just wanted to laugh, because this was so— So _ridiculous_ , so fuckin’ absurd, all of it. The island, the dinosaurs, _Captain America_. But before he could get anything out, Steve was doing that face again, the one he pulled whenever he wanted to mask how much pain he was actually in. It was a valiant attempt overall, Tony had to give him that, but even after a couple hours with the guy he’d figured out most of his tells. The important ones, anyway.

     Tony eased everything out of Steve’s hands and set it down on the ground with a clatter. “Okay, listen, there is not a chance in hell I’m letting you walk all the way to the quinjet while you’re bleeding out—”

     “It’s not that bad,” he protested, though it wasn’t too convincing.

     “Right,” Tony replied dubiously. “Let’s see what we’re working with here before we make any definitive statements.” He rattled the tin of Altoids — or, uh, not-Altoids. “Alright, this isn’t something I usually say before paying for a drink, at the very least, but I’m gonna need you to drop your pants.”

     Steve gave Tony a dry look, blowing out a huff of air. A couple stray strands of hair billowed in front of his face. And that was completely unfair, how, even though he was covered in sweat and blood, he was just as handsome as in all the posters that had adorned the walls of Tony’s childhood bedroom. And now was _not_ the right time to think back to his age-old crush on the guy, Tony reminded himself, if there even was a good time for these sorts of things.

     Steve complied easily enough, unfastening his fly and pushing his pants down to his knees, where he seemed to give up afterwards. He gestured vaguely to his feet. “Could you…?”

     It took Tony a moment to understand what Steve was asking, too preoccupied with how little those SHIELD-issued boxer-briefs left to the imagination. “Oh, yeah, sure,” he said, belatedly, dropping to his knees.

     That, too, took a minute to catch up to him, and he found his mind wandering all over again.

     Quickly banishing those particular thoughts to the back of his mind for a rainy day, Tony pointedly did not look up at Steve while he undid the laces of his boots, helping him out of them afterwards. It was the same suit from all the old newsreels, the colours faded, the fabric permanently dirtied, and Tony assumed that SHIELD had only given it back to him as a kind of comfort as he eased into the twenty-first century. Still, even if the uniform made it through this mission—and at this rate, it seemed close to a 50/50 gamble—Tony didn’t quite like the thought of Steve being sent out in what basically amounted to the same protection as jeans and a leather jacket.

     “I should make you a new suit,” Tony said, just to distract Steve as he peeled the combat pants, sticky with blood, past Steve’s knees and down to his ankles. “This one has no padding, the fabric is flimsy—” He patted the thigh of Steve’s good leg, prompting him to step out of his pants, then the same for the other, though Steve had to balance himself with a hand on Tony’s shoulder. “—and I could do so much better. Which you’ll just have to take my word for, I guess, since I don’t have any of my usual tricks and gizmos to show you. Alright, sit.”

     Steve sat down painstakingly slowly, leaning back against the cold cave wall, right beside his shield.

     “Please tell me you haven’t been wearing that on all your missions,” Tony continued, popping open the Altoids tin and rifling through its contents. A suture kit, band-aids, aspirin, gauze, razor blades. With this level of preparedness, Tony would put good money on Steve being a Scout as a kid. Were Boy Scouts a thing in the thirties?

     “It worked like a charm back in the day,” Steve defended. “And this is my first mission with SHIELD. They only found me a couple months ago. Haven’t been doing much since then. Catching up on reading, mostly.”

     Tony would’ve berated himself for not knowing sooner, especially considering that Fury had wanted to talk to him about some new initiative for similarly powerful individuals (which, of course, like most things Fury said to him, flew right out the other ear in that moment), but he cut himself some slack this time. The last few months hadn’t been the easiest adjustment for him either.

     And that was a thought, being something like co-workers with Captain America. Tony might’ve resented the idea before he’d gotten to know the guy, or before he had his life saved by him, but now… Now, not so much. He was warming up to Steve at a frankly alarming rate, though he didn’t worry quite as much as he should’ve. He suspected that was partly because of all the epinephrine getting his wires crossed somewhere, anyway, and not entirely because of Steve’s lopsided little smile.

     “Still,” Tony said. “Your first mission, and they warm you up by sending you to a island full of dinosaurs.”

     There it was again, the crooked hint of a grin. “In their defense, I don’t think they knew about the dinosaurs.”

     “Yeah, no, probably not. I didn’t either,” Tony replied easily, retrieving an unopened pack of moist towelettes from the kit. “And, uh. Just to assure you, those aren’t common in the twenty-first century. You’re not gonna look outside and see a triceratops walking down the carpool lane. Probably.”

     “Oh, good, I was getting worried.”

     Tony huffed out a laugh at that, but his own smile soon faltered when he turned his attention back to the task at hand. “This might sting, sorry,” he said, and before Steve could ask why, Tony began cleaning away the blood with the wipe as gently as he could. The package said they contained isopropyl alcohol, so hopefully it’d keep Steve from getting an infection, at least until a real doctor could take a look at him.

     It turned out Steve had been cut twice: the first laceration, curling around his upper thigh, from quad to hamstring, was shallow, the skin already beginning the process of healing itself; the second, running from just above the back of his knee down to the side of his calf, was a lot deeper and probably required stitches. Christ, it looked like it tore right through the muscle.

     “You don’t feel woozy or anything, do you?”

     Steve furrowed his brows. “Little tired, but I’ll live. Why?”

     “Not exactly sure how much blood you lost on the way here,” Tony explained absently, pulling out some gauze from the tin and pressing it to Steve’s calf. “And, uh, this—” Tony gestured loosely, encompassing Steve’s leg “—is not really my area of expertise. Which is really unfortunate, because it looks like I’m going to have to give you stitches and you’ve got nothing in your handy-dandy kit here stronger than Advil.” He dug around a little more, single-handedly, coming up with a small flask marked ‘alcohol’ in Sharpie, and looked to Steve with a triumphant whoop. “Well, I stand corrected.”

     “Uh, Tony, that’s not—”

     Tony waved off whatever possible concern Steve could’ve had, tipped his head back, and took a swig from the flask.

     Not two seconds after the liquid hit his tongue did he turn his head and spit it right back out. He wiped the back of his hand against the pad of his tongue, trying to get the taste out without gagging. He looked to Steve with an expression of betrayal. “What the fuck was that?”

     Steve, despite the shape he was in, was alight with amusement, biting down on his lip to keep from laughing. Tony couldn’t even be all that mad; happy was a good look on Steve. “Same stuff keeping those towelettes moist.”

     “Alright, alright, laugh it up, Patch Adams,” Tony grumbled. He twisted the cap back on the flask, trading it for the bottle of aspirin. He held it up questioningly. “Any chance these’ll work on you?”

     Steve shook his head. “Probably not. But it’s fine,” he rushed to assure. “I’ll be fine. I’ve gotten stitches before.”

     “Uh huh. When you were five feet tall and one Advil could knock you out?”

     Steve, smartly, did not answer that.

     Tony, gaze assessing, tried to figure out the best way to do this. Or maybe he was just buying time. Field surgery in the middle of unappealing caves was nothing new to him, but being on the other side of said surgery was. Which he tried not to think about, blinking back images of Yinsen leaning over him, expression twisted in sympathy, and rubbing at his chest, at the arc reactor, phantom pains of that first car battery coming back to him.

     Curious, Steve tracked the motion with his gaze, to the glow of the reactor visible through the thin white of Tony’s shirt. And while it was evident that he wanted to ask about it, he kept his mouth shut. Thank God for small mercies.

     “Might be easier if you were on your stomach.” Tony stopped pressing the gauze to Steve’s calf so he could roll up the sleeves of his dress shirt, now spotted with blood. Whose, exactly, he wasn’t sure. He pulled out the suture kit, making sure everything was properly disinfected and ready to go, and then took a moment to psych himself up. Caves, unsurprisingly, had a pretty unnerving effect on him.

     “Okay, so, full disclosure, I haven’t done this before,” Tony said, which maybe wasn’t the greatest thing to hear from someone who was about to do (albeit, very minor) surgery, but hey, it was either run his mouth or get a little too lost in his own head, and this seemed like the lesser of two evils. “I mean, you know. Giving someone stitches. Done a couple medical procedures, but they’ve been on myself, and once I ended up going into cardiac arrest—”

     Steve, now lying on his stomach with his face buried in the crook of his elbow, turned to look over his shoulder, fixing Tony with a raised brow. “Tony?”

     “Got it. Shutting up right now.”

     “Thank you.”

     Tony tried to imagine he was repairing a circuit board instead, or doing minor upgrades in the delicate internal structure of the armour. He tried to imagine the white noise of the lab as he worked: the bots chirping as they offered him a tool, their soft whirring as they moved around. The clink of metal on metal, the squeak of Tony’s chair as he rolled from one workstation to another.

     And for a while there, it actually worked. Tony’s hands, steady as ever, wove the sutures through skin, and it was only when he reached the halfway point that he was finally drawn out of his bubble of concentration by a stifled groan. Tony paused, letting a hand skim Steve’s ankle, thumb rubbing soothingly at his socked heel.

     “Need a break?”

     “Hm? Oh, no.” Steve cleared his throat, some of the tension draining from his shoulders. “No, I’m good, just keep going.”

     Tony did, but instead of letting himself work in silence, he found himself saying, “You know, when I was a kid, I had an embarrassing number of Captain America action figures. All of the comic books, too. Posters on my bedroom wall, the whole nine yards.”

     And maybe his bedside manner was a bit rusty, but at least it seemed to do the trick. Steve huffed out a breath, the barest hint of a laugh, and twisted around again to look over at Tony, one part incredulous and two parts amused. “Yeah right.”

     “No, really,” he said, tracing an X just over his heart — or, well, just over where his heart used to be, nearer the left side of his chest. “I can’t even tell you how many times I dressed up as Cap for Halloween. I had a little plastic shield and everything.”

     Steve hummed, like he was trying to conjure up an image of that. “Bet you were a cute kid.”

     “Oh, I was,” Tony replied easily. Teasingly. “Got the photographic evidence to back it up, too.”

     There was a beat of silence before Steve spoke up again. “I was talking to Fury about this— oh, how did he put it? Some kind of task force, I think. Anyway, he, um. He let me read your file.” Another pause, as Steve collected his thoughts and Tony applied the last stitch, neatly tying off the suture. It wasn’t his best handiwork, but it was better than he thought he’d fare, and wasn’t too shabby, overall. “And, I don’t know. Meeting you in person, you’re— You’re not what I expected.”

     “What’d you expect?”

     “Just another Howard Stark,” Steve said, just a touch of uncertainty in his tone, as if he wasn’t sure how that was going to be received.

     But Tony grinned brightly and assured, “Y'know, that’s the best compliment I’ve ever gotten in my life.” Gently, he patted Steve’s hamstring. “Alright, turn over again. Let me slap some gauze on the cut on your thigh.”

  
***

     Steve, being the epitome of human perfection, just had to prove the fact every five minutes — and without even knowing that he was doing it, too. It should’ve been annoying, really, but Tony couldn’t help but find it all surprisingly endearing.

     “Alright, my turn,” Steve said, just as Tony was trying to pack everything back into the kit. It was somewhere around his fourth attempt, and he couldn’t help but marvel at—and curse—how Steve had even managed this in the first place.

     “No, no, I got it, I’m almost there—”

     “C’mon, gimme that,” Steve said, easing the tin out of Tony’s hands. He took out the wipes, the gauze, and the little roll of medical tape, and for a moment Tony wondered if there was something he’d missed, thinking back to the fight. Thigh, calf, shoulder. But all those thoughts, growing increasingly concerned by the second, immediately halted at Steve’s next words. “Take your shirt off and get over here.”

     Tony blinked.

     He swallowed, the sound seeming to echo through the cave.

     “Now, usually, I’d be all for it,” he started, trying to be deliberate with his words, even though all he could think about was the startling amount of seriousness in Steve’s expression, the lift of his brow, the curl of his fingers around the packet of gauze. “But, y’know, I haven’t showered in three days, and this is a fairly new reactor so I’m not too sure how well it’ll hold up against, ah, prolonged strenuous activity, and I am definitely not as prepared as you because I didn’t bring any—”

     Thankfully, Steve interjected before Tony could ramble long into the night, the worry in his expression making way for something closer to bemusement. “You’re hurt,” he said simply, and before Tony could shove his foot further into his mouth, motioned toward his ribs.

     Right.

     In all honesty, Tony had forgotten he’d even been wounded, so caught up in trying to make sure that Steve was okay, that he was safe. But now that it had been pointed out, it seemed to hit Tony all at once: the persistent sting of pain, the numbed ache around his side, the exhaustion of the last couple days.

     Okay, yeah, maybe Steve was onto something here. Maybe Tony needed a little bit of patching up as well. Of course, it wasn’t anything he couldn’t do himself, but Steve, despite his own condition, wouldn’t have that. And God, he was just so— So caring and stubborn and unbelievably, genuinely _good_ that the mere thought made Tony’s heart start to work in double-time.

     Steve had taken up his previous position: back against the wall, his bad leg splayed out comfortably in front of him, and the other bent at the knee, his foot flat against the cold cave floor. He spread them a little more to accommodate Tony, who tried not to think too hard about their proximity—and it was a good thing Steve had put his clothes back on, because Tony just might’ve had a very minor heart attack if he was still just in those snug little boxer-briefs—as he knelt down in front of Steve, sitting back on his heels, and unbuttoned his shirt.

     As worn and thin and tattered as it may have been, the second Tony let the shirt slip off his shoulders and to the ground, he felt more exposed than he ever had in his life. More naked, more vulnerable. His heart was right there on display in a glass case, his scars and soul bared. Steve was really the fourth person to see him like this, after Yinsen, Rhodey, and Pepper, but it wasn’t any easier this time, not under the weight of his keen, sympathetic gaze, the feather-light brush of fingertips against the tangle of scars.

     Tony stayed stock-still, hardly breathing. He was sure Steve could feel the hard thumping of his heart in its cage, making his chest shake with the force of it, but he was courteous enough not to say anything about it.

     “Does it hurt?” Steve murmured after a long moment.

     And it did, more than he cared to admit — when it rained, when he woke up crying, when someone yelled just a little too loud. Most of the time he could block it out, focus his attention on his work at SI, or being Iron Man, or, now, _dinosaurs_ , apparently, but underneath his damn near permanent mask of bravado, he ached constantly, his heart tender and his chest raw.

     But here, Steve’s hands on him were like a cool balm, and Tony only replied, “Sometimes.”

     It became too much, too soon, the way Steve was looking at him with something like reverence, like wonder, and Tony wasn’t used to that. For all that people stared at him, even before his three-month nightmare in Afghanistan, it was never like this, never so soft and amazed and gentle, and Tony couldn’t take it anymore, lightly guiding Steve’s hand down toward his side instead.

     Steve offered a sheepish, apologetic smile when he met Tony’s gaze again, and Tony couldn’t help but return it, handing him gauze pads and tape as directed, and trying not to notice how the sunlight would catch on Steve’s eyelashes whenever he looked up in thanks.

     “Alright, there you go,” Steve said, smoothing down the tape around the gauze. If he lingered a bit longer than necessary, Tony didn’t mention it. He cocked his head slightly, searching Tony’s face. A pinch appeared between his brows. “You okay?”

     “Yeah,” Tony assured, managing to convince even himself. “I’m getting there.”

  
***

     Between the two of them, the baggie of granola didn’t last more than fifteen minutes; they passed it back and forth as they sat by the mouth of the cave and watched the sun sink below the horizon.

     They’d spent the rest of the afternoon talking—between phases of Steve stubbornly insisting they still had time to make it back to the quinjet by evening, then nearly falling over as he tried to hobble out of the cave—which was… Well, to be honest, it was probably the most fun Tony had in the last couple months. The last year, even. It was both relieving and relaxing not have to put on a face for Steve, to be himself without expectation. To be scared so openly, frustrated, hurt. To be tired and dirty and disheveled. Steve had already seen his bare, bruised, beating heart without running in the opposite direction so Tony thought he was doing okay, for once.

     He really should’ve expected that he’d be this charmed by Steve, by his honesty, his modesty, his knack for storytelling, but it still managed to catch him off guard, just a little. They talked about SHIELD like it was the weather, about Fury’s work-in-progress team like fantasy football. They talked about Bruce, the kids, Osborn, and for a while there, Tony felt almost normal. Normal for him, at least.

     There was just something about Steve that made everything so easy. Sitting next to him, even this island was starting to become bearable.

     And just like that, like a boomerang that had taken thirty years to return, Tony’s childhood crush finally came back, and much stronger than before. The force of it hit Tony hard enough to leave him winded, and Steve paused in the middle of his sentence to furrow his brows and give Tony a quick, concerned once-over. And God, that was definitely not helping, the way Steve just cared so much and so fully, even though they hardly even knew each other, and Tony was sure that deep down under the reactor his heart was growing three times its size.

     Admittedly, he wasn’t too proud of what he did next, but with Steve’s baby blues trained on him like that, his attention undivided, heady, with the way they were sitting close enough that they were pressed against each other from knee to hip to shoulder, well, Tony couldn’t stop himself.

     He leaned in, his lips meeting Steve’s.

     He meant for it to be a brief kiss, just a _thank you_ and _I’m glad I’m here with you_ and _how are you so goddamn perfect?_ rolled into one. But maybe he had the wrong idea, maybe he’d misinterpreted all those subtle looks Steve had been sending his way all afternoon, because the kiss didn’t last longer than two seconds.

     The look that crossed Steve’s face after he pulled away—something like shock, like confusion—would’ve been almost comical if it didn’t make Tony’s heart drop right into his stomach.

     “Oh.”

     “I’m sorry,” Tony said immediately. He felt himself go red at the rejection, and God, when was the last time that had happened? Usually Tony was shameless, or at least unashamed, but there was something about Steve that just made him flush at the tiniest thing. “We can just ignore that. I thought... I don’t know what I thought, but yeah. Let’s just. Rewind a bit, forget that ever happened.”

     “Oh, no, I was just… You just surprised me, is all,” Steve hastened to assure. He reached out, took one of Tony’s hands between both of his, and offered one of those antiquated Boy Scout smiles, soft and sweet and genuine. “I’m not saying no, but I think it’d probably be best if we wait a little. Just until we get out of here.”

     Tony hadn’t been on the receiving end of too many brush-offs, but that sounded as clear as any. “Right, yeah. I get it, it’s okay.”

     As if he could sense Tony’s doubts, Steve gave his hand a squeeze. “I mean it.” And because he was an absolute tease, and Tony absolutely smitten, Steve pressed a kiss to the tip of Tony’s nose, to his cheek, to the corner of his mouth. “As soon as we get off this island,” he said, firm, and it sounded like a promise.

     Steve was going to be the death of him, Tony was sure of that.

     Or, well, at least if the velociraptors didn’t get to him first.

  
***

     Tony was back in Afghanistan, lungs burning as they plunged his head into a bucket of water, as he hoped, not for the first time, that the car battery he was hooked up to would just electrocute him already. He was tied down to a chair, bruised and bloody, staring down the lens of a camera and the barrel of a gun. He was waking up on a rickety cot, Yinsen wrist-deep into his chest, ribs broken, tongue tasting like pennies, every nerve in his body firing at the same time, the pain so forceful he could feel himself slipping back into unconsciousness—

     And then he was waking up for real, panting and shaking, trying to look around for some indication of where he was, only to be met with darkness. The cave floor was cold under his palms as he pushed himself up into a sitting position, frantic but only half awake. His chest felt like it was being ripped apart and put back together all over again, and as much as he tried to force air into his lungs, he just couldn’t seem to breathe, all of a sudden sucked back into his hellish dream, back to being waterboarded for hours on end and—

     It took Tony a moment for his eyes to adjust to the blue glow of the arc reactor, and another for him to realize someone was speaking to him in soft, calming tones.

     “Hey, it’s okay, you’re okay,” Steve was saying, repeating it like a mantra. It sounded practiced, but no less sincere, and Tony couldn’t help but wonder exactly how long Steve had been trying to comfort him. “I’m right here with you, everything’s gonna be alright. We’re in a cave in Isla Nublar. You were having a bad dream, but you’re safe now.”

     Tony scrubbed his hands over his face, breathing in deeply, gulping down air like a starved man. The worst part about all of this—and it was difficult to choose just one—was that he really thought he’d been doing okay, thought he was finally getting better. Back in New York, JARVIS had just figured out which conditions to keep the bedroom so this exact kind of thing wouldn’t happen, and for a while there, the nightmares had stopped. Not entirely, but they came less frequently, and sometimes Tony could make it through the night without thrashing around fitfully. He knew that he needed to give it more time, his trauma, and he knew that it wouldn’t just up and disappear like he kept wishing it would, but this just seemed like a step backwards for his progress.

     Tony raked a shaky hand through his hair, finding it damp with sweat. God, this was pathetic. Again and again, the universe found new ways of exposing him in front of Steve, methodically stripping away every wall and mask and layer he’d so carefully constructed to protect himself, and now he was back to being completely defenseless.

     He pulled his legs up to his chest, letting his forehead fall against his knees, and tried very hard not to rock himself back and forth like a fucking kindergartener.

     “Hey, hey,” Steve said, as he tentatively reached out to rest a warm hand against Tony’s back. When he didn’t protest, Steve took it as an invitation to rub over his shoulder blades in soothing circles, and Tony couldn’t help but lean into the touch, letting it ground him. “Deep breaths. Yeah, like that. And another, c’mon, do it with me. In. Good. Out. There we go, that’s it.”

     And Tony absolutely hated having to drag him into this, into all of the issues he’d tried so hard to hide, but what he hated even more was how Steve’s gentle coaching actually helped. It died down after a while, after it seemed like Tony’s breaths had steadied, and the subsequent stretch of silence was only broken by a quiet, tentative, “Want to talk about it?”

     “Not particularly,” Tony said, muffled, from the little ball he’d curled himself into. He tried to focus on Steve’s touch, tried not to think about his nightmare or the tightness of his chest or the feeling of drowning. He was safe here. He was safe here, except for the velociraptors waiting outside to tear him apart, the T-Rex ready to eat him whole, and the hundreds of other creatures on this island that wanted a piece of him, and all of a sudden, Tony’s throat hitched around a hiccup and he couldn’t hold back anymore.

     He let out a miserable, heaving sob, hot tears running down his cheeks, his throat stinging, as he wrapped his arms around his legs, tight, as if he could somehow make himself smaller and smaller until he eventually disappeared. For this whole goddamn weekend, he’d been holding it together, for the others if not himself, but now it was like something finally snapped inside of him, like he’d broken an emotional dam, and once he started to cry, he didn’t have the strength to make himself stop. He wasn’t even sure that he wanted to — it felt good, in a strange, cathartic kind of way, to finally let it all out.

     Tony had been at boarding school long enough to have perfected the art of crying silently. But here, his sobs were loud, wet, echoing throughout the cave enough to drown out the ambient sounds of the nightlife outside, though he couldn’t bring himself to care in the slightest.

     Steve was back to murmuring soft assurances next to him, his hand moving up to card through Tony’s hair for a while before continuing to rub at his back again. It was nice to be held and touched and taken care of, especially after the last couple days of being so focused on looking after everyone else.

     It was a while before his sobs eventually dwindled down into sniffling and the beginnings of a headache, and Tony finally unfolded himself from his position, wiping at his eyes with the back of his hand, his nose with the sleeve of his shirt. The knees of his jeans were damp.

     Tony was far too exhausted to be embarrassed about any of it, but he still didn’t look Steve in the eyes as he sighed with a certain air of finality, an announcement that he was all done. And when Steve wrapped an arm around him, seeming suddenly so much closer than he’d been just a moment ago, Tony didn’t let himself think too much as he dropped his head onto Steve’s shoulder, resisting the urge to bury his face in Steve’s neck. “I’m sorry,” he murmured, deflated.

     Steve sounded almost bewildered as he said, “For what?”

     Honestly, there were so many reasons Tony didn’t even know where to start. “For waking you up, probably. If it wasn’t the— I don’t know, whatever pitiful sounds I was making in my sleep, it was the light from the reactor. I know I’m not the easiest bedfellow,” he said, trying for humour but falling flat. “And then, y’know. That whole breakdown just a minute ago.”

     “I have nightmares sometimes too,” Steve admitted, after a moment. “Granted, they’re usually not as bad as yours, but. It happens to the best of us. Nothing to beat yourself up over.”

     He was so earnest that Tony couldn’t help but believe him, and one glance at the look on Steve’s face told Tony that he didn’t need any more of an explanation. There were few people on the planet who could understand what this was like without needing it to be put into words, and Steve, by some miracle, was one of them. It was easy with him, and Tony found himself truly relaxing—limbs loose, mind clear, heart steady—for the first time since he arrived on Isla Nublar.

     And this time, when he fell back asleep, slumped against Steve’s side, Tony didn’t dream of anything.

  
***

     By the morning, Steve could walk again, albeit stiffly, and Tony took his time to check over his stitches before they finally set out in search of the jet. They didn’t talk about the kiss, or last night, or the fact that Tony had woken up with his head pillowed on Steve’s chest and feigned sleep for an extra ten minutes just to feel the hand carding gently through his hair. They hardly talked at all, both tired and hungry, dead on their feet, but the silence was companionable, comfortable, and Tony spent most of it thinking about what he’d do as soon as they got off the island: have a shower, a shave, and a twenty-hour nap. Get his best lawyers to shut down the park. Put on his favourite suit and take Steve out to dinner. Punch Osborn in the face.

     Honestly, he didn’t know which of those he was looking forward to the most.

  
***

     Miraculously, the only dinosaurs they had run into along the last leg of their journey had been, for the most part, herbivorous, which only made Tony grow even more anxious. He was the same kind of jittery as if he’d just downed six shots of espresso, snapping to attention at every little sound, constantly vigilant for even the slightest danger they might encounter, and when finally he caught sight of the quinjet in the distance, Tony didn’t think he’d ever felt more relieved in his life. It was almost too good to be true, at this point, after days of dreaming about this exact moment, and he had to glance over at Steve’s matching expression—grim determination making way for silent cheer—just to affirm it wasn’t simply a mirage.

     “Oh thank fuck,” Steve said, grinning as he turned to Tony, eyes bright, hair a mess, handsome as ever. He still wasn’t in any shape to run, but it was a close thing, the way he took Tony’s hand and led him at a surprisingly brisk pace toward the quinjet.

     “If only the kids could hear you now,” Tony tutted in mock-seriousness. He dropped the act seconds later, cracking a smile. “That’s five dollars in the swear jar, Captain.”

     “Oh, shut up, you,” Steve returned, his tone nothing but fond. “C’mon, let’s get outta here.”

  
***

     No more than a second after he’d entered the craft, a firm body was barrelling into Tony, strong arms wrapping around him and squeezing him just a little too tightly. Not that he minded; not when he knew that Bruce had made it back, limbs intact, smiling sheepishly as he pulled away, and Peter and Harry took his place, arms outstretched for a hug. Tony knelt down to scoop them into an embrace, letting out a breath of relief that tickled Peter’s hair.

     Unable to bite back his grin, Tony held them at an arm’s length, looking the boys up and down to make sure that they weren’t hurt, then let his gaze wander over to Bruce. He had a small cut on his forehead, curly hair slicked back with sweat, but other than that, they all seemed to be in good shape — albeit slightly slack-jawed at whatever was behind Tony.

     “Ah, right,” he laughed, getting back to his feet. He made a grand, sweeping gesture toward Steve, hanging back by the entryway. “Guess who I ran into on the way here.”

     “Are you really Captain America?” Peter asked with wide eyes and an even wider smile, as he took in the sight of Steve leaning against the wall, cowl tucked under his arm, shield strapped to his back.

     And as soon as Steve nodded, it was like a starting pistol had gone off, Harry and Peter rushing over to him with an incredible but understandable enthusiasm and about a million questions each. It was good to see that, despite everything, they still hadn’t come out of the experience bitter and jaded. Tony was going to put them on the Stark Industries payroll one day, he already knew it — the company needed bright, young, curious minds like theirs, and while Harry might take a little more convincing, it’d be well worth the effort.

     Bruce sidled up to Tony, elbowing him lightly to drag his attention away from Steve. It was no easy feat, and between the soft little smiles he kept throwing Tony’s way and the effortlessness with which he dealt with the kids, it took a good thirty seconds before Tony finally turned to Bruce.

     “You okay?” he asked, and the question hadn’t gotten any less loaded now that they were in the relative safety of the quinjet. “I mean, what happened after I left?”

     Tony thought back to his first meeting with Steve, the hours spent talking and playing doctor, the feeling of Steve’s lips on his, Steve’s hands brushing over the reactor, Steve’s fingers in his hair. Only belatedly did Tony notice Bruce gesturing to the tear in the side of his shirt, and he simply replied, “Oh, that. It’s kind of a long story, I’ll tell you when we’re back on home soil.” It was Tony’s turn to look at Bruce expectantly. “So, c’mon, don’t keep me in suspense. Did you get the power back on?”

     “We did, but I’m not sure how helpful it was in the long run,” Bruce pointed out. “All of the dinosaurs are out of their enclosures anyway.”

     Tony clapped him on the shoulder. “Well, that sounds like Osborn’s problem now. Speaking of which, I don’t know about you, but I’m kinda leaning toward not endorsing the park.”

     Bruce’s mouth ticked up in a half-smile, but before they could say anything else on the matter, a SHIELD agent—Coulson, the one that had been loitering at the back of Tony’s “I am Iron Man” press conference—walked out of the cockpit, clearing his throat to get everyone’s attention. “Mr. Stark, Captain Rogers, good to have you back,” he said, nodding to each of them in turn. “I requested back-up, so SHIELD’s bringing in the helicarrier to evacuate the island and do some investigations. Harry, your father will be on the next flight out of here, I assure you.”

     “What about us?” Bruce asked, before Tony had a chance to.

     “If you’re all ready, we can head back to New York,” Coulson said, with more of a smile than Tony had ever seen on his face — it might’ve been disconcerting if Tony wasn’t too preoccupied jumping for joy on the inside.

     Relieved that they didn’t have a _Robinson Crusoe_ kind of situation on their hands, even though it had been pretty touch and go up until this point, Tony just said, “I was ready two days ago. Let’s get this show on the road.”

     “Alright,” Coulson replied, probably sensing the desperation in his tone if his sympathetic look was anything to go by. “Everyone, strap in.”

  
***

     Sometime during the middle of the flight, when Bruce and the kids had fallen asleep in their seats, Tony lightly elbowed Steve, offering his most dazzling grin. He wasn’t sure how charming it actually turned out to be, between the whole rugged mountain man look he was surely beginning to sport and the tired bags under his eyes, but Steve was still looking at him with that soft, earnest expression, like Tony was something special, so he assumed he was off to a good start.

     “So,” Tony said after a moment, just casually, like he hadn’t been thinking about this non-stop for the past twenty-four hours. “We’re off the island.”

     And, okay, admittedly, Tony may not have been as well-versed in the art of subtlety as previously thought, because Steve caught on right away, biting back a smile. “Mhm. Seems we are.”

     “Listen, about yesterday, I was just wondering—”

     “Yes.”

     Tony paused, a bit taken aback by how little he had to work for it. Not that he was complaining at all, especially not when Steve’s hand came up to rest at the back of his neck, fingers brushing against the hair at Tony’s nape. “Well, that was easy,” Tony murmured, and thank God he had found an actual Altoid at the bottom of that tin because Steve was a lot closer than he’d been a second ago. “Just— Uh, just so we’re on the same page, what exactly are you saying yes to?”

     Steve cocked his head slightly, inquisitively. “Kissing you?”

     “Right. Okay. Good,” Tony said, but placed a hand on Steve’s chest, just to pause him before he started to lean in again. “I was actually— I was wondering if you wanted to go to dinner sometime. With me. Not tonight, obviously, I think we both need some rest and you need to go to medical, but—”

     “Yes,” Steve said again, his lips curled around a grin. “I’d love to.”

     “Good,” Tony breathed, beaming, and before Steve had a chance to say anything even remotely sentimental about that, he closed what little distance there was between them and pressed his lips to Steve’s. Just like before, Tony melted into it, forgetting for a moment about the park or Osborn or way his side still ached numbly, and giving himself over to Steve like he’d grown so used to doing in the last twenty-four hours. Steve held him like a fragile thing, kissed him softly and sweetly, and while usually Tony would’ve protested being treated so delicately, maybe it was just what he needed after the last couple days. Maybe it was what they both needed.

     He was breathless by the time Steve pulled back, but Tony didn’t let him get too far, nudging Steve’s nose with his own, letting their foreheads rest against each other.

     And for the first time since he got to Isla Nublar—for the first time in months, really—Tony knew wholeheartedly that everything was going to be okay.

**Author's Note:**

> Happy holidays, everyone!


End file.
